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By Mary Beth Breckinridge
Beacon Journal home writer
Published on Saturday, Jun 28, 2008
Some of the biggest energy hogs in your home may surprise you.
They're things like your computer and its wireless router, your brand-new flat-panel TV and even the digital picture frame you got for Christmas.
When it comes to electricity, they're insatiable. Some gobble quickly; others graze all day long.
These plug-in devices are responsible for a dramatic growth in energy demand, said Tom Reddoch, director of energy utilization for the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that conducts research and development for the electric power industry. The most insidious among them are the devices that stay on all the time, so that even if they don't use a great deal of power at any one moment, their use over time piles up.
What's ironic, Reddoch said, is that this growth in demand happened while huge strides were being made in improving the efficiency of the five biggest home-energy users: refrigeration, heating, cooling, lighting and water heating. While we were focused on those areas, the others sneaked up on us.
Reddoch had his own rude awakening when he put some water features in his backyard. When he measured, he discovered that the pump motors were using 48, 52 and 65 watts, and they were running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Altogether, they were using 1,445 kilowatt-hours a year — more than enough to power two good-size Energy Star refrigerators.
Take a look at some of the devices many of us have in our homes:
• An 8-inch digital picture frame uses about 90 kwh a year.
• A cable converter box uses about 265 kwh a year. Add more functions like recording, and the usage can go up to 430 kwh.
• A 42-inch plasma TV uses about 500 kwh a year if it operates 51/2 hours a day — about 21/2 times the power required by a 27-inch set with a cathode-ray tube. An LCD TV uses about twice as much as the old-fashioned set.
• An Xbox video game system uses about 220 kwh a year if it operates three hours a day.
At roughly 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, those aren't huge expenses individually. But add everything up, and both the cost and the energy use mount, Reddoch pointed out.
What's more, use of plug-in devices continues to grow. Clay Perry, a spokesman for the institute, noted that in 1970 the average American home had three or four devices it kept plugged in all the time — a TV set, a refrigerator, maybe an electric alarm clock or a freezer. Today the average is 26.
''We really need to recognize what we're doing'' and be better stewards of energy, Reddoch said. ''We're not promoting abstinence. . . . We're promoting prudence.''
— Mary Beth Breckenridge
Some of the biggest energy hogs in your home may surprise you.
Get the full article here.
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